All of niceguyanon's Comments + Replies

The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living This is a good book.

Think about all the regrets and bad things that have happened to you, that you don't know about – the time you dropped money or missed out on a life changing opportunity or mistakes you have made that never got your attention. You probably don't or won't because you don't feel much for things that you don't know that happened to you. So it is possible to feel no emotion about negative things. You have the power to hold no opinion about things, you just ne... (read more)

I don't think that the "show up neatly groomed and dressed" thing is teaching kids to emit particular social signals that is less suitable to a programmer coming to an interview. Both scenarios are about conforming to social norms and for students that happens to be literally neatly groomed/dressed, which for the programmer means no business suit. It's just more useful to use the phrase neatly groomed/dressed than socially appropriate because for most things socially appropriate is neatly groomed/dressed.

Being socially appropriate is not ov... (read more)

I think there was a distinction made between planned C-sections and unplanned C-sections (medical emergencies), so that they were able differentiate outcomes following emergencies like a breech baby vs a completely planned C-section. And I think it showed that show C-sections overall were more risky than vaginal birth and long term health was better for vaginal births.

I haven't done any google fu on this topic, other than reading a few passages in a book.

I am constantly reminded of that fact daily!

Ideally 100% of those that medically need C-sections will get it, and those that don't wont.

I think there was a study that was cited in the book about the reduced C-sections rates, but of course the devil is in the details like you say, best to do your own research. I have personally updated my beliefs in favor being more resilient to time pressures of labor and that use of a doula isn't just a waste of money as I previously had thought.

I am reading Expecting Better, a book about evidence based pregnancy and in it, there are passages about the high rates of C-sections and why it might be. The conclusion was that one medical intervention, whether by drugs or over-monitoring, usually leads to another and another and you end up with a C-section. Non C-section births have better outcomes. So you want to avoid it if you can. The book also mentions that the use of a doula can reduce rates of C-sections to less than 10% from modern U.S. rates of 30%. That is very impressive. Why and how? ... (read more)

Some are. But not all.

But how many? It seems more likely that most terrorist have shitty lives and got exposed to a dangerous and bad meme. The alternative would be that there is a certain genetic demographic that is predisposed to committing terrorism, sounds far fetched. If Christians during the crusades had modern technology 1000 years ago, we would probably have seen the kinds of solo terrorism we see today. It was really hard to be a lone fanatic trying to kill 10s of people back then with a blade.

There seems to be an effort to propagate...

I don't think so, or just a trivial amount. Looking at downvotes or lack of upvotes, I don't get that sense at all. Political talk is almost always discouraged and when it does go on, its fairly even handed.

Similarly I have mused that the closes thing we have to magic in the real world is the ability to forecast.

Tangentially related, I'm surprised that students misjudge how high the cost of being late is to the cost of arriving early. I have a suspicion that people who insist on being exactly one minute early and no more are made up of two groups, the very efficient and the best procrastinators that are often late and when on time they get to pat themselves on the back for being efficient.

Getting to class early just to sit in the front row is the easiest way to boost your grade for most classes, IMO as an armchair psychologist.

I dunno, it's hard enough trying to determine if and where profit was made, in order to tax it. If we didn't tax profits and only distributions then there would be no taxes to collect. Companies and individuals would all claim that any profit are being retained for future investment or for hoarding and not actually distributed to owners. That is why we tax non distributed retained earning.

I understand now. Thanks!

So if we can distinguish between

"I know the probabilities involved and they are 50% for X and 50% for Y" and "I don't know".

Could we further distinguish between

a uniform distribution on the 0 to 1 range and "I don't know"?

Let's say a biased coin with unknown probability of landing heads is tossed, p is uniform on (0,1) and "I don't know" means you can't predict better than randomly guessing. So saying p is 50% doesn't matter because it doesn't beat random.

But what if we tossed the coin twice, and I had y... (read more)

I enjoyed the post and appreciate the additional links for reading.

The main character's reaction is sort of unhealthy/fake - better would have been to clarify that you overheard them bantering earlier.

I did not feel that way at all, the reaction is simple and appropriate. Imagine how clunky and awkward it would be for the main character trying to explain that in fact you over heard the banter and that you don't want the mom to think, that you think its OK for there to be rude things said about her son, in front of her. That would come off as weir... (read more)

This is a really good example of when the organization does gets it right on the big picture, but it seems like they didn't pick the right paradigm. An observation of mine is that organizations often seem dysfunctional to a lot of participants because they aren't part of the profit center or privy to the overall strategy. A company can be fully aware of dysfunction or inefficiencies within, and find it acceptable, because fixing it or making someone happy isn't worth the resources.

Suggestion to sticky the welcome thread. Stickying the welcome thread to the sidebar would encourage participation/comments/content. And perhaps in the future add emphasis on communication norms to the thread, specifically that negative reception and/or lack of reception is more obvious on LessWrong – So have thick skin and do not take it personal. I'd imagine that quality control will be what it has always been, critical comments.

Admin intervention is way too much.

But tobacco is still bad! E-Cigs are better.

What are your own thoughts about the problem of monopolies, are they even a problem at all? The standard answer is that they either would not occur or would be a beneficial thing.

My contention, however, is that racial prejudice is a factor in real-world police shootings/violence.

I'm not disagreeing with you but I just want to add to the conversation that I think the SSC comment is closest to the issue when he/she said:

Still, the incentive is there. And it’s based on math – racial prejudice not required.

Because I believe people tend to follow incentives, my current best guess is that police do over-profile (target the higher risk groups more than the actual risk differences would suggest), and they are going to, and the only qu

Is it fair? No. Is it racist? Also no.

Agree, and I think this is a really important and overlooked implication, that two tribes will talk past each other on. Unfair discrimination persists even with rational, non-racist, greedy capitalist.

A less charged example would be life insurance policies. Almost everyone would agree that mortality tables are acceptable; almost everyone could also imagine themselves getting older, and could imagine themselves as above average with in their group. The insurer will rationally charge the older group more premium. A... (read more)

If I remember correctly username2 is a shared account, so the person are talking to now might not be whom you have had previously conversed with. Just thought you should know because I don't want you to mistake the account with a static person.

It was but it speaks of his underlying ideas and character to even be in the position to do that.

What do you mean by this? Assuming its a joke, why does it speaks to his character and underlying ideas; why would it, it wasn't meant for you to take seriously.

What would you want me to respond, if at all?

Probably not at all.

Why I think people are not engaging you. But don't take this as a criticism of your ideas or questions.

• You have been strongly associated with a certain movement, and people might not want to engage you in conversation even on different topics, because they are afraid your true intention is to lead the conversation back to ideas that they didn't want to talk with you about in the first place.

• I think username2 was making a non-serious cheeky comment which went over your head and you responded with a wall of text touching on several ideas. People som

Do we have the same definition of a troll? Just wondering because the term seems to have drifted and I wonder where I stand. One sided flaming is what I would call it, because the person is hostile and insulting, resulting from emotional discussion. IMO Trolling requires the deliberate intent to provoke, as if that was his whole reason to post here. It's more likely that this person is dead serious, but socially inept (too strong?)

This person has written volumes of stuff in various places for years, seems unlikely that he's just messing with people fo... (read more)

Is it possible to use moderation tools to hide the parent comment or move it. It doesn't even belong here and others have been nice enough to offer good feedback regardless. This is a welcome thread, and it's being derailed with bizarre behavior.

I suspect it degrades the quality of the site...

Your first paragraph venting your frustration at the 2 karma rule was unnecessary, but cool you realized that.

I think this post is fine as an Open Thread or as an introduction post. I don't see why it is necessary for its own discussion. Plus it seems like you are making an article stating that you will make an article. I don't think you need to do that. Just come right out and say what you have to say.

I have the same question as this OP. I didn't think any of the answers were helpful enough. Basically everything I could find regarding Assange's asylum with Ecuador stems from the threat of Sweden extraditing him to the U.S., however the threat of politically motivated deportation remains regardless of what happens in Sweden; the U.K. can just as well do it.

I don't know what to think about Ego Depletion. When I first read about it, it felt quite intuitive and the research on it was robust. It came up everywhere I read. Then the whole replication crisis thing happened and serious doubts were cast on it. I updated towards a weaker effect.

I haven't given it much thought since, until I was recently reminded of the study about mental fatigue on parole board judges and how chances of granting parole were greatest at the beginning of the work day and right after a food break(replenish mental resources).

If Ego... (read more)

Being smart can make you more susceptible to some biases.

Agree but Dominic is making a much stronger claim in this excerpt, and I wish he would provide more evidence. It is a big claim that

• the more educated are prone to irrational political opinions
• average incomes are less likely to express political opinions to send signals.

These are great anecdotes but have there been any studies indicating a link between social status and willingness to express political views?

You have been noticeably not commenting. Care to comment why?

At this point, it seems like if it was written about in Cialdini's Influence, you can safely assume it's not real.

How well has the ideas presented in Cialdini's book held up? Scarcity heuristic, Physical attractiveness stereotype, and Reciprocity I thought were pretty solid and hasn't come under scrutiny, yet at least.

I understand your criticism much better now.

The endowment effect, or priming, maps pretty well to a lab.

Are you saying that cognitive biases like endowment effect and priming map better to lab settings therefore are less susceptible to contrived experiments to prove them like ego depletion?

I don't know whether or not these map well to a lab or not, but priming research is one of the major areas under going a replication crisis; not sure about the endowment effect.

Is your objection really that the topic has no relevance to LW or that because the information is found in so many other places that it has no relevance?

I appreciate summaries on LW even if they are found elsewhere because it provides for comments and discussion from a very particular group whose input which I prioritize(over other internet strangers). I often do a quick search on LW for new ideas I am exposed to, to get the LW spin. Say you just discovered this forum and you decided you like how everyone aspires to be a rationalist, but you have gaps ... (read more)

They have confirmed it is AlphaGo.

Could you provide a simple linkage as to why the effect(less I know, easier it seems for the other specialized person) is a consequence of the availability bias?

One connection I could draw from the effect to the availability bias is the ease of recall of the less specialized person of successful resolutions of the specialized person. For example, a manager who has numerous recollections of being presented a problem and assigning it to the subordinate for a fix. The manager only sees the problem and the eventual fix, and none of the difficult roadblocks encountered by the workers, therefore the manager tends to underestimate the difficulty. I'm not sure if this is a connection you would agree with.

Well it would certainly help me if all these Econo-technological optimists who took that survey speak up and tell me what they think about UBI please!

But I thank you for your simple linkage.

This means you're surprised that people who think that the economic growth will be high are strong supporters of basic income.

Yes!

I can propose a simple linkage as to why this is so: the no-stagnation people are (technological) optimists. They believe that in the near future there will be plenty of value/money/goods -- enough for everyone. If so, in this environment of plenty it makes sense to provide a UBI to everyone.

That is what I am trying to figure out; is this what they think? I have never encountered that way of thinking before, hence why I... (read more)

Why the idea of economic well-being remaining the same supports the basic income proposal?

Wait isn't that the point? I'm not saying basic income will or will not work, just that the idea of economic well-being remaining the same or perhaps worse, might already be an undesirable outcome for those that strongly support basic income?

I'll try: The main thesis is that economic growth has slowed in the United States and in other advanced economies, as a result of falling rates of innovation >>> belief that further advancing automation will not raise wages and stagnant wages will persist, >>>support basic income.

Damn it, that was the worst time to make a typo. I meant Stagnation. But back to the point, I'm not following how someone could believe in the Great stagnation as presented in wikipedia to not having it be a motivating factor to support basic income.

But the surveyed belief was about entering the great stagflation.

EDIT: I mean stagnation

So the last survey has me a little surprised and confused regarding the amount of people who strongly disagree with entering great stagnation and strongly agree with basic income, all across the board.

Can someone shed some light on why this might be? I'm surprised because I would expect strong supporters of basic income to have some belief in the coming technological automation unemployment. You see this all the time in r/futurology, where they are always posting up articles talking about how jobs are going away and not coming back.

I'm not saying t... (read more)

I'm guilty of over updating towards stupid/crazy when ever someone has a cranky belief. I was on board with the bullying of Ben Carson, but in hindsight the man is a neurosurgeon; I'm pretty sure he's smarter than me.

Since you have a child, have you heard of Elimination Communication and what is your opinion?

Agree. There have been an influx of posts and almost no comments to go with them, looks sad. SSC's most recent post is really interesting but almost no comments, perhaps because it has already been discussed on SSC, maybe this will help.

we are all 'useful idiots' of a sort.

It's sheep all the way up!

I have already spent hours researching this topic.

I applaud your effort and hope your hours spent means others' saved.

Like no Aloe in Aloe products.